Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine MEVISInstitute News
Following its successful launch in the 2025/26 school year, the “Digital Medicine” specialization, jointly developed by Oberschule am Waller Ring and the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Medicine MEVIS, will continue and be further developed in the 2026/27 school year. The specialization is aimed at students interested in the medicine of the future.
The second cohort officially began on August 31, 2026, with a kick-off event at the Digital Medicine Workshop at the Fraunhofer MEVIS institute building in the Bremen Technology Park. The new class brings together 22 female students and two male students from ten Bremen middle schools in the districts of Gröpelingen, Hemelingen, Horn, Lesum, Neustadt, Schwachhausen, and Walle. Together with teachers and researchers, the students gained initial insights into the subject matter and explored emerging digital technologies that are shaping the future of healthcare.
Digital tools are already an integral part of medical practice today. Many of these technologies are developing rapidly and are fundamentally changing job profiles in digital medicine. This is exactly where the program comes in: it provides students with an early understanding of digital health care and its interdisciplinary connections. Its aim is to raise young people’s awareness of emerging career fields and to show them perspectives beyond traditional medical training pathways. “With the ‘Digital Medicine’ upper secondary school program, offered as part of the biology track and linked to computer science and mathematics, we are creating new curricular connections and updating teaching content and practical examples. At the same time, we are opening up new STEM study opportunities for our students,” says Jan Wicke, Head of Upper Secondary Education at Oberschule am Waller Ring.
For Fraunhofer MEVIS, the partnership with the school is an important contribution to educational guidance to securing future talent and skilled professionals. Today’s students are tomorrow’s university students, professionals, and researchers, the people who will help shape the digital transformation of health care,
In terms of content, the program is based on an interdisciplinary concept with modules connected through an overarching case story from medical practice. The upper secondary school students explore digital methods, software development, and the processing of medical data, and learn how these can be used to create applications for medicine. Using the example of a female patient, they learn how digital technologies and AI are used in the diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of cancer. As part of this, accessible, interactive tools provide a tangible introduction. The specialization also creates space for subjects such as psychology, art, and German. The underlying concept is also reflected in physical education through participation in the Venuslauf, a charity run organized by the Bremen Cancer Society. Also in the second year, the profile is further supported by teacher training courses as part of “Teach the Teacher,” as well as interactive offerings on medical image processing.
With the “Digital Medicine” program, school becomes a place where future-oriented skills are taught through practical applications and new educational pathways are opened up for a health care system that is becoming increasingly digital, interconnected, and multidisciplinary.
The “International Fraunhofer Talent School Bremen” supports this initiative by promoting the STEAM workshops. The “#MOIN Campus-Nachbarschaft” (“Hello Campus Neighborhood”) sub-project, funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMFTR) and running until 2026, helps place an emphasis on mathematics in the specialization’s modules.